


A Step Closer to Home

by Shoulderpads



Series: Exit the Void [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Healing, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Kingdom Hearts III Spoilers, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 16:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18286310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoulderpads/pseuds/Shoulderpads
Summary: After waiting helplessly for her son to come home and tell her what the past two years of his life has held, Kumo Taiyō finally gets him home. With a new friend in tow.





	A Step Closer to Home

**Author's Note:**

> So this take place before “Bubble Bath” and doesn’t require you to read it in order to read this one!
> 
> This one’s gonna be a lot of telling and summary and not a lot of showing and scene but we got a lot to get through here, I hope you are prepared. 
> 
> Sora’s mom deserves so much better, and if I’m going to write stories about Vanitas staying with Sora, she needs to know what’s going on. Plus she’s probably going to play a large role in some of the other stories I have planned in this series, so she needs some proper development!
> 
> Also important! This takes place in a universe that I’ve grown rather attached to where Sora and Vanitas play as partners in the Reaper’s Game.

No one liked being left in the dark, but for the past two years, Kumo Taiyō felt like she’d been blindfolded while events unfolded around her that no one could explain or just wouldn’t. 

When her son and his friends disappeared during that faithful storm, everyone had assumed they’d died. Their archipelago was rather small, so surely they’d have turned up. Then Kairi appeared again, rattled and tearful. After her adoptive parents had reunited with her and Kumo felt that she wasn’t intruding, she sought out the girl and begged the questions that hadn’t left her mind since that night Sora didn’t come down to dinner. 

Kairi told her that Sora and Riku were alive, that Sora was out looking for him, but when asked where exactly they were, she shook her head and seemed hesitant and tight lipped to explain where they had been. Sora would come back to her when he could drag Riku back by the ear. He’d tell her the full story then. 

Then there was that year in which she stood confused, staring into what was obviously a child’s bedroom. It was well lived in with an unmade bed and clothes littered over the floor that brought a scold to the tip of her tongue. But she couldn’t recall ever having a child, and her friends and neighbors assured her she had never had one. Only Kairi seemed sympathetic to her confusion, swearing she used to play with another boy besides Riku, Tidus, and Wakka. Kumo couldn’t even explain why the girl seemed to visit her so often and why she knew so much about the exploits of children around the island. 

After everyone’s memories of Sora returned, once again, only Kairi seemed to understand that they had indeed forgotten the boy for a year. 

Guilt ate away at her. 

Then he was back. Riku too. Of course. 

It turned out her son didn’t have much of a story to tell. He also wasn’t a good liar, but based on the panicked and desperate glint in his eyes when she pressed for answers, she let it go and didn’t push him. His paper thin story told of him, Riku, and Kairi getting lost and separated in the storm and Sora going after them. 

She could tell it was true, but it didn’t even scratch the surface of whatever had really happened. The boys returned home with new clothes, so they must have ended up somewhere with civilization. Kairi hadn’t come home roughed up like a stranded survivor might have, and neither did the boys. Sora and Riku walked differently now, more upright and fluid. They had the grace of well trained dancers, not gangly teenagers unsure how to use their growing limbs. She could see the muscle that wasn’t there before, and when she hugged her son, she lamented for the loss of her soft little boy. He was taller now, and could feel the tight coil of muscles under calloused skin. And no excuse explained that mysterious year. 

She knew something bad must have happened. She could see it in the way Sora jumped and tensed at sudden movement and sounds. She could clearly remember the breakfast where the door knocked behind him and his feet planted like he was ready to swivel around and fight, and his hand twitched by his side as if searching for a weapon in the empty air. It was only a package, but his hypersensitivity wasn’t a fluke. 

When Riku came over, he favored his right hand more than a rightie should. She’d catch him staring at his left wrist, and even spotted him wince once or twice when moving it a certain way. 

Then there were the panics and nightmares. 

She’d often find her son tossing and turning in his bed, reaching out and crying for Riku, or mumbling apologies to harsh sounding names she’d never heard before, or calling two other unfamiliar names as if his life depended on their aid. 

She’d grabbed Kairi’s wrist once when the girl was leaving, to make sure she didn’t forget the homework she’d come over to work on, and the Kairi had wretched her arm away so quickly it must’ve hurt. The horror cleared from her face almost as quick as it arrived, but she couldn’t fully mask it. 

She’d never forget the time Sora’s friends came over for a sleepover, and upon seeing them all fast asleep, squished on her son’s bed, she closed the cracked open door, and turned off the hallway light. Only minutes later, did she hear Riku’s terrified scream rattle around the house and metal screeching. By the time she ran over and forced open the door, Riku had quieted. Sora had his hand on the turned on light switch, teeth clenched and eyes fearful. Riku kneeled on the bed with his face in his hands, muttering back and forth with Kairi who ran her fingers through his long hair. 

When Kumo had finally broken down and begged Sora to tell her some sliver of the truth, to please _just let her in, let her help_ , he’d hung his head and told her with sorrow dripping off his words, “I _can’t_.”

Then he was gone again. Riku too. Of course. 

And not too long after, Kairi disappeared too. 

And she waited, helpless and ignorant of her son’s fate. She didn’t know when she’d see him again or if she ever would. It all felt so senseless. She had no control or understanding left in her life. She didn’t know if Sora was in danger, if he needed her, and she could only wait and watch the stars. 

Then Riku came back, angry, and defeated, and alone. 

That was new. 

She didn’t wait to ask him about Sora. He didn’t hesitate to tell her he was looking for Kairi and that they **would** be back soon. 

Then one evening, Riku showed up at her doorstep with Kairi and promptly broke. 

He clutched her and sobbed in a way she hadn’t heard since the time he showed up after his dad backed his car over Riku’s cat and neither parent seemed particularly concerned over it, so he came to see Sora. She could hear Kairi’s soft cries behind him, and a cold feeling settled into her gut. 

Pulling them inside, Riku threw himself into a dining room chair and muttered something to the effect of, “Fuck what the King said,” and told her everything. 

Or at least a basic version of it. Apparently the story was complex and others could tell their own part in better detail. But she learned that her son and his friends could use a legendary weapon called a Keyblade, which they used to travel to other worlds and fight dark monsters. The pair explained that this world had fallen to darkness, but Sora had saved it. They explained that they’d been destined to come together with four other warriors of light to fight thirteen darknesses who aimed to summon something called Kingdom Hearts, to wipe the worlds to a blank slate. Riku explained that they’d won, that he was considered a Master, but Sora deserved the title far more for his bravery and all the people he’d selfless helped and saved. Kairi ruefully explained her capture and destruction and how Sora went after her wielding a dangerous power to do so. 

“And now he’s gone...” she whispered into the table cloth.

Riku banged his fist against the table. “He is **not**! He can’t be! We’ll find him. He’ll find us. Something. He _can’t_ be gone.”

Kairi nodded, but didn’t appear to have much faith in his words. He hugged her close. 

“I have faith.” Kumo nodded. “I know my Sora, he’s strong, and from what you’ve said, stronger than I could’ve possibly imagined. We will see him again. We have to keep hope.”

Over the coming weeks, Kumo met a variety of people who had come to explain their connection to Sora and give reassurances that they’d return him. 

She met Roxas, who she’d heard Sora apologize to in the dead of night, and his friends Xion, Namine and Lea, though they called him Axel, the other name she heard sorries for. Roxas had her son’s eyes, and Xion and Namine both wore Kairi’s face. She eyed Lea suspiciously for his closeness to these children, but after their story, she came to respect him. She found the concept of Nobodies hard to wrap her head around, the concept of a clone made of Sora’s memories of Kairi harder to understand, most difficult was swallowing that Kairi’s heart had taken refuge in Sora’s heart and that he’d stabbed himself to free her, causing these kids to exist. 

They filled in the patches of Riku’s story where he glossed over some man named Xemnas and his organization. It pained her to imagine the teens having to work for such a group, and she hated to know Lea had been with them for over a decade. He would’ve been just a boy...but then Namine explained her part, tampering with Sora’s memories, she apologized profusely, and then apologized for having to borrow everyone’s memory of him to fix it. That explained it. Xion went on about having to return to Sora’s heart to complete his memory and wake him. Roxas gripped the edges of the table as she explained that she didn’t regret it was thankful to have been part of someone so compassionate that cared for her individuality. Roxas went on to tell about his forced rejoining of Sora and how he’d hated him at first, but came to understand how it needed to be Sora holding the reigns. 

Kumo came out of that discussion with the understanding that she’d unknowingly gained three more children. 

When Mickey, Donald, and Goofy came over, she’d thought she’d finally lost it until she remembered hearing those names from Sora’s dreams too. For all the strange turns her life had suddenly taken, royalty in her dining room was still daunting, even if it was a three foot mouse. Mickey explained his part in Riku’s story, while Donald and Goofy practically gushed about Sora as if they were his parents, not her. 

The explained their first adventure together, and then their second, then the third. They explained how much Sora had grown from the first time they met him and how proud they were. She could tell they cared a lot for her boy and been through a lot with him. She thanked them for caring for him. They said they were sorry they hadn’t done better. Mickey thanked her for raising such an important and accomplished child and told her she should be proud. 

She was. 

Terra, Aqua, and Ventus shook her hands and called her “Mrs. Taiyō.” They spoke with such respect and manners, but Ventus’s hand shake was a bit tighter and more frantic and he began to tell her how important Sora was to him. Aqua made him slow down, and they came to the table. They explained their tragic fates and how Sora had been there to save them. Ven was rather vague about his...other, but told her how he’d known Sora almost as long as the younger boy had been alive. 

“He’s saved me more times than I can count, and has been doing so almost his whole life. I can’t tell you how much he means to me. He’s like a little brother to me. I’ve practically watched him grow up from inside his heart. He’s a truly special boy, and I promise we’ll do everything we can to bring him home like he did for us.”

Terra and Aqua nodded. 

They bid her farewell and Kumo watched them go. Ven looked like Roxas, but he acted so much like Sora, she wondered how much influence he’d had on her son’s life. 

And then Sora came home. 

—

There was no fanfare, just the door unlocking and opening. Kumo came out of her room armed with a bat only to find her Sora in the doorway instructing another boy to leave his shoes at the door. 

“The boots are attached, asshole,” the stranger said. 

But she didn’t hear it, not even the clatter of the bat as she dropped it. The boys jumped and spun to face her and she zeroed in on Sora’s rich blue eyes that she’d seen on so many faces lately but his own. 

“Mom!” He choked out, rushing to meet her with one shoe still on. 

But she found she didn’t care about that, only about crushing him right to her chest and swaying as he tucked his face into her neck. 

“My boy, oh my precious boy,” she whispered, smoothing down hair that jumped right back up into its original position. Sora. Sora was here. He was ok. “You are in so much trouble, but I am so happy to see you.”

Sora squeezed her tight and pulled away. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to cause you stress.”

She pinched his cheek. “Oh but you do, my love. We are going to have a long talk after this.”

Sora nodded. “Right. Oh, also, um, don’t freak out, but this is my new friend, Vanitas.” He swept his arm towards the other boy who looked up. 

He unnerved her to look at, even after meeting so many people who had the faces of others, even though Roxas and Ventus looked like they could be Sora’s brother, seeing Sora all over this boy raised goosebumps. He looked like they could be twins, only he had pitch black hair, and unnaturally red eyes that held a hardness and scrutiny Sora’s wide eyes lacked. The set of his jaw and the firm line of his mouth were all wrong too. He had on some kind of suit that clung to his body with fibrous grooves which looked like black muscles. He waved stiffly at her from the welcome mat, radiating an unsettling aura. 

“I’ve heard that name.” Kumo said. 

“Oh...y-yeah?” Sora stammered thinly. 

“Is that so?” Vanitas asked at the same time. Any openness he’d had closed immediately, face guarded, back straight, and chin hitting out. 

“Ventus mentioned you.”

“He’s here?” Both boys asked, and they even sounded the alike, except for the high pitched nerves in her son’s voice and the growl in Vanitas’s. 

She shook her head. “Not that I know of. Unless he’s visiting the play island.”

“Whatever he said, Mom, I swear that’s in the past and-“

Kumo held up a hand. “You said he was your friend, I trust you. Plus I’ve met plenty of your friends with rather checkered pasts. I let that Isa boy stay here while his friend tried to work something out for him. I’m not worried.”

“Isa’s ok?” Sora asked, “Oh, that’s great!” He rubbed the back of his head. “So I guess they kinda all told you a l-“

“Everything,” she affirmed, “Though no one told me about Vanitas’s looks.”

The boy scoffed, “Like I asked to have his stupid face anyway.”

“Right, well I can explain-“ Sora began. 

“You’d better. I don’t want anymore secrets in this house. Cosmic laws do not apply under my roof.”

“Yeah, ok,” Sora deflated and stared at his shoes. “But can Vanitas stay?” He perked back up. “He doesn’t have anywhere else to go and we decided Aqua and Terra might try to kill him on sight-“

“I’m kind of tired of dying,” he added. 

“Yeah. So can he?”

“I told him I don’t need somewhere to go, I’m perfectly fine on my own.” Vanitas crossed his arms. 

“Oh cmon, we talked about this!”

“I just wanted you to shut up about it.”

“Vanitas,” Kumo stopped their squabbling, “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want or need.”

He looked her square in the eye. “Really. Just like that? You aren’t afraid that I’m,” he wiggled his fingers next to his head, “a monster?”

“Like I said, if Sora trusts you, so do I, and I have a feeling you’re might have partial blame in helping him get back here.”

“Tch.”

“Now come boys, I’m making tea, and I want a good story.”

—

She hated hearing her Sora explain death. Even though his eyes lit up at the descriptions of the crystal reflection beneath his feet and the little cat he befriended there. Her heart ached for him as he talked about diving deeper after the monster that had taken his friends’ souls captive. The whole battle against this Xehanort character she’d heard so much about was stress she’d never wish upon anyone, let alone her child, his friends, or the nice people she’d met the past few weeks. Everyone seemed to have their own adversaries and personal foes to juggle, but Sora had helped in each and every battle. Kumo could feel pride in that. 

“Then Vanitas’s helmet broke when we defeated him, and I saw his face!” Sora told. 

“I almost had you,” Vanitas grumbled. 

“Sully, a noncombatant, snuck up on you and threw you through a closet, you didn’t almost have anyone,” Sora shot back, freezing whatever gesture he’d been using in the story. 

“I’d’ve had Aqua if Ventus hadn’t seen fit to finally wake up.”

“She was exhausted and injured, that doesn’t count.” They sounded like they’d had this conversation before. 

“So, why do you look alike,” Kumo interrupted. 

“Oh yeah! So Ven and Vanitas are connected from being the same heart, so when I connected to Ven, I also connected to Vanitas-what was that word you used?”

“Tangentially,” Vanitas supplied. 

“Tangentially. He was born without a face, so that connection influenced his looks.”

Kumo eyed Vanitas. Only Sora could make having no face sound so cheerful. She tried to imagine the boy as blank. She wondered what that felt like. 

Sora continued the story from there, getting into another quarrel about Vanitas staying with the darkness and fading away when given the opportunity to choose a different path. From the way Vanitas explained, it seemed like he did make a choice. A choice for darkness, but a choice no less free. 

Then Sora woefully went over Xemnas’s capture of Kairi, and how Xehanort dangled her in front of him and Riku and destroyed her. When his fists clenched against his knees and his gaze on the carpet went unfocused, Vanitas elbowed him gently. 

“Don’t get so lost in your head. She’s fine.”

“Right,” Sora said shakily and looked up and Kumo, “Maybe it wasn’t my brightest move, and I’m sorry, but I had to get her back. I couldn’t...couldn’t let it end that way.”

Kumo knew Sora adored his friends. He frequently talked about how he’d do anything for them, and at the time Kumo had assumed the height of that generosity would be a couch to sleep on or money, not scouring the universe for them and certainly not dying for them, fully aware of the risks. 

The story of waking in the world of friends he met in his dreams followed. He explained the Reaper’s Game and how he’d formed a begrudging partnership with Vanitas. It really hit her then that Sora and this new friend had been well and truly dead, not some variation of fake death she’d come to learn about through her visitors. He’d died for Kairi and clawed his way back to life through trial and tribulation with someone who had tried to kill him. But to Sora, this didn’t sound any different from any other adventure, and Vanitas wasn’t different from any other traveling party. Noise were no different from heartless, Reapers were no different from Organization members. In a way she could understand, on his other escapades he might not have been dead, but failure would still end that way, so really, what was a week of fighting monsters and doing odd jobs? Still, he had been _dead_. She was one run down timer from loosing him. 

In the end, she knew she’d had a lot keeping her up that night, but going into every little detail of everything that happened from Sora’s perspective over the past two years would take hours, maybe even days, and Vanitas didn’t seem interested in expanding on his side of the tale others had spun for him. Plus, they all needed dinner, and Vanitas needed a place to sleep for the night. 

“What kind of food do you like?” She asked him, as a host to a guest. 

He shrugged with crossed arms from his place behind Sora who followed Kumo to the kitchen. 

“Well, are you vegetarian or do you have any food allergies?” 

“...no?”

She didn’t like how unsure he sounded, but digging through the spice cabinet hid her sour expression. “So you don’t have any preference?”

“No. It’s your house anyway,” he shuffled his feet, still in the boots attached to the weird suit. It hid practically nothing, and even if he and Sora had the same face, they didn’t have similar physiques. The suit clung to a too thin torso, and had it not had that texture, she was sure she’d be able to count his ribs. She could fix this. 

“Yes, but you’re my guest, I want you to feel welcome here.”

“...Right.”

She’d turned to ask Sora what he felt like having when the exhaustion from getting him back and listening to his tales finally hit her. Plus he was in trouble anyway. She sighed, “How about we just have left overs?”

—

After dinner, which consisted of Vanitas and Sora arguing over trivial, shallow things and Vanitas finishing half his meal before shoving spoonfuls of left over stew in his mouth in longer spaced intervals with increasing discomfort on his face and hasty glances towards Kumo, they set up the living room. 

Vanitas stood on the edge of the dining room and living room with folded arms as Kumo and Sora unfolded part of the living room couch into a bed. Kumo sent Sora off to fetch pillows and a blanket from the hall closet and turned to Vanitas. 

“If you plan to stay with us longer, we’ll figure out something more comfortable than this.” She jerked her thumb at the couch. “The bathroom is down the hall to the left. If you need water in the middle of the night, the cups are in the cabinet above the counter next to the sink. If you need something, Sora is in the room across from the stairs, I’m the next one over. If you forget which is which, you’ll hear his snores.”

He nodded stiffly. She hated how tense he seemed. The first time Kairi came over for a sleepover she’d been nervous and Kumo had found her drinking out of her hands in the bathroom in some twist of over politeness, but she didn’t look like the bed was going to eat her, and she didn’t scrutinize and sniff at her dinner. The more amenities she listed, the more he seemed to hunch and grip at his forearms. 

“Do you have pajamas, or do you need to borrow a pair?”

He looked from her to the floor and back, nose scrunched. “No?”

There it was again, the uncertainty. 

“I’m sure Sora can spare a pair. He hasn’t gotten that much taller since I last saw him.”

“Ok.”

“I think that’s everything then. Again, if you need something, don’t hesitate to ask.” Experimentally, she reached an arm out to pat his shoulder, and he flinched. Hard. 

She dropped her hand away immediately. She didn’t like any of this. 

Sora came back with plain, white pillows, a sheet covered in stars, and pair of nightclothes without having been asked. He set the bed and fluffed the pillows with the ease of a hotel worker. “Not great, but better than the scramble crossing.”

“It wasn’t that bad.” Vanitas shrugged, almost shifting 180 into confidence. 

“You didn’t get a crick in your neck after a week?” Sora mirrored Vanitas’s posture. 

“Please, you act like it was sleeping on a bed of nails.”

“Whatever, maybe you’ll love the couch if hard surfaces are that comfy for you,” Sora snickered. 

“I’d like it better if your annoying voice wasn’t here to keep me up,” Vanitas sneered, but his voice was light. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. See you tomorrow.” Sora retreated to the stairs. 

“You hope!” Vanitas called after him, Sora waved him off. 

“Good night, Vanitas.” Kumo dipped her head. 

“Uh...yeah. You too.” His face closed off. 

She left him be. 

In the morning, she found him curled in the corner of the fold out bed, on top of the sheets, perfectly fluffed pillows off to the side, boots on, pajamas untouched.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Sora’s mom is basically an oc, so if you decided to take a leap of faith on my interpretation, thank you and good on ya! Hopefully she’ll be liked in future installments too!
> 
> I’ve considered expanding some of these glossed over scenes with Kumo where she meets everyone, so if any pique your interest, please let me know!
> 
> Find me on tumblr at Shoulderpads-mcgee2!
> 
> Edit: I previously wrote his eyes being yellow but I changed my mind. They’re red


End file.
